


Honesty

by JustBeforeTheDawn



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, Therapy, definitely won't lol, post 4x18, what should happen tbh
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-30
Updated: 2020-04-30
Packaged: 2021-03-02 01:48:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,482
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23927152
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JustBeforeTheDawn/pseuds/JustBeforeTheDawn
Summary: Betty decides that honesty is the best policy.She might just be right.Betty: I think I might be in love with Archie from my childhood crush, how romanticCheryl:  Betty shut the fuck up, it's just bad writingBetty: Oh shit yeah
Relationships: Archie Andrews/Veronica Lodge (past), Betty Cooper/Jughead Jones
Comments: 32
Kudos: 74





	Honesty

**Author's Note:**

> what a lazy fucking way to ensure a time-jump break-up
> 
> they almost had a good idea with betty being tempted by nostalgia, but choosing to indulge in it seriously? fuck off. set it up better and we'll talk, don't expect us to find it sympathetic because while betty was marginally more sympathetic than archie (she's been through some shit lads), they chose to kiss while in relationships with each other's best friends and not come fucking clean about it.
> 
> we all knew you had a time jump coming. no need to be a wanker about it.

Once school has ended and they're all away from each other for the summer, Betty tells Jughead.

They aren't away from each other, of course; they still share a room, a bed, a life. Betty can't bear to let this stew, to let it ruin the future that she hoped-hopes for with the boy who's always been there for her.

He's angry and heartbroken. Of course he is. He runs off into the night, just like the night of Homecoming when everything was still fresh and new.

A few days later, he returns. Betty doesn't know where he's been sleeping, but he looks exhausted.

"Why didn't you tell me?" he demands. "I might have understood."

"I was scared," says Betty, fat tears rolling down her cheeks. "I didn't want to hurt you or lose you."

"Yet again," replies Jughead angrily, "You did those. You did both of those things, Betty, you lied to my face and told me you didn't have feelings for Archie. You're a fucking liar, again. Why was I ever stupid enough to trust you?"

"I love you," says Betty. "It was just a stupid mistake, a single kiss. I never really wanted Archie, I was just sad and scared for our future together, and you were angry with me and pulling away and-"

"I didn't go and kiss someone else!" yells Jughead. Betty thinks, _you kissed Toni the first time_ , but she keeps her mouth shut, because at least Jughead had actually been split up from her then.

She has no such excuse.

Jughead leaves again.

Maybe they are split up now; she would deserve it.

A few days later she tells Veronica. Archie hasn't told her either.

With Betty, Veronica's rage is cold, calm. 

"Remember the week we met?" she says frigidly. "I had to grovel to you for kissing Archie. You weren't even dating. I had to work so hard for your forgiveness, with your moral high ground and your fucking high horse, Betty Cooper. I didn't kiss your boyfriend of three years. I didn't keep it secret from you. God, you've spent all this time bringing people in Riverdale to _justice_ and this is what you do? I don't care if you're trying to apologise. We're done. And Archie and I are done. When I leave Riverdale, I never want to hear from any of you again. Well done, Betty, you've ruined four lives this time, not just your own."

She marches out of the room. Betty thinks she has had her last meal at Pop's. She will not be welcome there after the owner's legitimate rage.

Jughead comes back. When she enters the house, he is talking quietly with FP, who has spent the last weeks alternating between furiously ignoring Betty, and casting her the saddest looks. She deserves it; she is not welcome in the Jones house, even though she has nowhere else to go. It is testament to Betty's life that she gets to stay here while Jughead runs away.

Jughead slaps a pamphlet in front of her.

"What's this?" she asks, her voice trembling. Jughead's face is impassive, devoid of the love with which he used to look at her. She is so lonely, and it's all her fault; even her mother has refused to comfort her more than a little. If Alice thinks she's been awful, then she truly has.

"Read it," says Jughead, and disappears.

Post-traumatic stress disorder, the pamphlet says. Emotional numbing; breakdown of relationships; withdrawing from people who remind you of the experience.

Oh, she thinks. That's both of us. We've been through so much.

It breaks her heart that Jughead is still looking for ways to help her.

In the end, they make appointments together.

FP has helped Jughead so much, has talked him through his anger and fear. If Stonewall ended up being about intergenerational trauma, then this is the real fallout, and FP II is trying to make sure that FP III does not repeat his and FP I's mistakes. He doesn't want Betty to become another Alice, repressed and troubled and married to a terrible man who doesn't really love her.

Jughead's sadness dulls, and he remembers that Betty chose him, unequivocally. His own therapist helps him to see how his anger has built over the years, his paranoia (to be fair, they really were out to get him), his guilt and rage from all the terrible things that had happened to him. He comes to understand how Betty could have panicked in her own fear and trauma, how she flailed for something comforting, found it freely offered, and let it go.

He loves her.

Betty's therapist is a kind, calming woman who helps her so much, when the guilt and the sickness threaten to consume her. After all of Alice's manipulations and scheming, the Adderall and the heartbreak and the hallucinations and hypnotism, she can't understand why this hasn't been suggested before. Mrs Burble was like sticking a band-aid on the gunshot wound to the chest of Betty's awful life. Why, after she faked seeing Dr Glass, after she thought she should see a therapist nearly two years ago, hadn't she just done it? Why had she compromised her entire future with the man she loved, for want of just talking through her problems?

Easy. The person she normally talked through her problems with was Jughead, and he was nearly as much of a mess as her, pulling away from plans for the future for fear of confronting it.

They never actually split up. It takes surprisingly little time for Jughead to come to terms with it, because while he doesn't forgive or forget, he _understands_. She is wracked with guilt, but she loves him so much, she can't help but fight for them. They sleep in separate rooms for a while, but they start to spend time together again, doing things that they love. Therapy is not a linear process, and there are good days and bad days, but they never forget that they love each other so desperately, to live without one another is far worse than any alternative. Soon, they think about a future togther again.

Jughead does not forgive and forget Archie, or understand him. Archie's girlfriend wasn't lashing out at him, like Jughead had at Betty. Archie didn't watch his girlfriend nearly die and think he killed her. Archie, when push came to shove, didn't realise that he was being an idiot, and leave before things could become irreversible. Archie has his own traumas, but this is the culmination of a pattern of behaviour that Jughead has seen repeated over the years.

Archie would have been happy to lie and cheat and see Betty behind Veronica and Jughead's backs. Betty, in her worst moments of delusion, never considered that.

He goes over to Archie's after giving Betty the pamphlet; he tells Mary what Archie did, and breaks all ties with his former best friend. It does not become violent; Jughead has talked with his therapist about Bret and Penny, and how little satisfaction violence actually provides him with. He does, however, tell Archie what he thinks of him. Mary is left sobbing. Archie had not told her why Veronica abruptly split up with him, why she left Riverdale without looking back for a moment. Mary is horrified by the thought of her little boy treating his friends the way he has.

Jughead reminds him that as shitty as Archie was to him, as much as he took advantage of Betty, he has been awful to Veronica. He does not deserve Betty or Veronica as a girlfriend, and never did.

Archie looks like _he_ might turn violent, so Jughead leaves before Archie can use his shitty boxing skills on him. A tiny bit of him remembers that Archie has never knocked anyone out with a single punch.

Veronica never accepts Betty's apology. Betty fears she is right not to; her head told her it was a choice between the two boys, and she hardly thought about how badly she was betraying her friend. Veronica owes her nothing.

It takes some time, but they get there. They are both so desperate not to lose the other, they walk on eggshells for a while, using every piece of advice that their respective therapists have ever given them. When the time comes to leave for college, they both make arrangements to continue with their therapy sessions. They both feel better than they have in years.

One night, wrapped up in one another after a glorious round of sex, Betty nuzzles his chest.

"Thank you for not giving up on me," she whispers. "I love you. And even though I fucked up, it just... in the end, it only really told me what I needed to know. I choose you. I'll always choose you."

Jughead says nothing, but he holds her closer.

**Author's Note:**

> look guys I know they're probably going to split them up, but communication is sexy and they don't fucking deserve this mess after everything they've been through
> 
> feeling better after 4x18 but I still think it was awfully constructed to provide maximum angst and zero honesty to character.
> 
> and what the fuck was their thing with archie? they've spent the whole series telling us what a saint he is and the guy was saw in 4x18 was a massive bellend. poor veronica. they literally don't give a shit about her, do they? they didn't even have betty or archie give a shit about her. for a show run by a gay latino man they sure fucking hate the queer characters and veronica. jfc


End file.
